The Myths of Sheogorath
by Itite Emakoiji
Summary: The (Unofficial) Stories of the Myths of Sheogorath. Within the game, there is a book called 'Myths of Sheogorath' and the stories here will follow the myths. Starting first with Sheogorath and Music.
1. Sheogorath and Music

**Sheogorath and Music**

Although usually spending his time outside of the overworld, Sheogorath was still a visitor there. Usually, it was to cause some havoc, so he could amuse himself watching all the mortals beetling around trying to fix or bring some logical insight into whatever he'd done. Though now he was becoming rather sick of them. They always reacted the same – surprised. Would it be so wrong of him to want a different response? He'd turned many men mad with his power, when they would see their cart horse, lethargically plodding in front, dragging the hunk of wood behind it, change before their eyes into a gasping red fox, which would occasionally get crushed under one of the wheels in its panic. The men would marvel, rub their eyes, look around to see if they'd missed their horse making off down the road. There was never anything there. So they were left with two halves of a dead fox, attached to the cart.

This would be the first thing Sheogorath would do to torment their precious minds. This was intended to weaken their outlook, so that they became susceptible to his power. Of course, it was not out of Sheogorath's reach to cause a mortal to become mad just by clicking his fingers. But he liked to play with them.

It would not be long before Sheogorath would make another move. It was easiest to just appear and disappear in front of his victim, then gleefully watch their reaction. He would choose a quiet road, where the man would be walking, alone. He would walk to them, in some sort of mortal guise, but he wouldn't walk on the road. No, he'd make sure he'd be walking somewhere illogical, such as in the air, straight out of the air, appearing in front of them, or emerging from water, his mortal clothes staying dry.

It was also good fun if he changed their limbs into those of other animals. Give the poor, poor man a goat's legs for a few minutes before changing them back. And, maybe, the paws of a bear. Nose of a pig. On one occasion, a hunter had shot his man, thinking he was actually part of the fauna. Sheogorath decided to turn his attention to the hunter. They were already seeing a part man, part bear and part pig creature, after all.

Despite his fun with the mortals, bending and breaking their minds, that source of fun was fast becoming monotonous. Still fun, but there was less excitement, less anticipation. He knew the method, the conclusion and the result. There is no fun to be found in the known.

So Sheogorath decided to spend some time on the mortals' earth. He was not at all apprehensive about leaving his own little world, because that, too, had become boring. The mortals walked this world every day, and they never seemed to be short of something to do.

Sheogorath chose the form of Man with a Cane as he appeared on earth. The cane was one of dark wood, with a heavy glass head. He was just outside Solitude, in Skyrim, on the junction, where the road turned down the hill to the docks. Sheogorath decided that the smell of fish and rotting wood he could do without for now. Choosing to go up to Solitude, it took no more than a few minutes of brisk walking, his cane tapping satisfyingly on the cobbles. The Solitude guards inclined their heads politely at him as he passed.

Once inside the city, at that point a large-ish area filled with houses and planted trees, birdsong rising from behind the leaves, Sheogorath stopped walking to take in what the people were doing. He saw some were working, selling food products, clothing, and merchandise at their stands in the square. Sheogorath had no use of any of these items. He only ate if he wanted to, and he could take whatever mortal guise he wanted, so clothes were out of the question. He continued on, walking after some young children who were zooming around the city, laughing and chasing each other. Such menial games disinterested him. He saw no amusement in chasing a so-called friend, smacking their shoulder and yelling the word 'it!' There was much more fun to be had mentally, reaching into the mind of a mortal and shaking it up, bringing their darkest feels to boiling point, making them grin with panic, and froth at the mouth before collapsing in a gibbering heap at his feet.

There was a large building that was serving as a college. It looked more or less empty though. Sheogorath climbed the steps into the paved plaza and gazed at it. To his left was a seating area where celebratory dances were performed, as well as the Burning of King Olaf. One person went into the library of the college, and only one came out, the same person. Sheogorath had been standing, just observing it, for hours. He looked around with a disgusted grimace at the city. It had failed to excite him. Not even the ink-like smudge of the falcons against the sunset brought a smile to his face. He felt angry. He gripped his cane, trying to hold himself back from unleashing his frustrations upon the city. Some birds still chirped, and their cheerfulness angered him still further. He passed a woman, who was saying goodbye to her friend as he went inside a house. She turned, and Sheogorath heard her say,

"How beautiful the birdsong is."

Something about this stopped Sheogorath in his tracks. He turned slowly, seeing the woman's slim shape start blending with the evening shadows. She looked cheerful. Like the birds. Sheogorath's eyes wandered to where the birdsong had come from. Man was not supposed to be able to sing like a bird or howl like a wolf. In the art of making sound, of making music, man was useless with what he had to offer from his own throat. Some could just about manage to sing a note or two, but most were terrible. He took a step, knowing that he didn't have the power to give the mortals the means to be able to chirrup or howl, but wanting to do something. If they could make music, it might be able to entertain him in another way. Other daedra had the power over people, such as Meridia who kept all mortals inside her sphere. Sheogorath had no way to mess with their anatomy.

He was still carrying the cane. He raised it off the ground so he made next to no noise, and got up close to the woman. If he could not make them make music, surely he could make them into something that would allow other mortals to make music? He grinned, licked his lower lip, then grabbed her, pressing his fist to her slim throat so she could not scream, and dragged her behind a wall, into what seemed to him like a small garden. He threw her among the Dragon's Tongue plants, lowering himself onto her and twisted her head violently to the side with his. There was a crack to mark the end of her life, her neck broken. He laid into her body with the cane and his own hands, ripping her flesh, getting blood and viscera onto the sleeves of his grand coat.

He tore out ligaments, strong, flexible tendons, dripping with gore, and fastened them to a large, hollow piece of wood. The blood dripped into the hole in the wood, staining it, dampening it. He pulled the tendons tight, so that when he plucked them delicately with a gory finger, it made a twanging sound, echoing in the hole. With a happy chuckle, Sheogorath set it down, pleased with his new creation. He returned to her body. A few minutes later, her ribcage was visible, the flesh peeled apart, stagnant blood pooling under her, feeding the soil. Sheogorath broke ribs off, cracking them into odd, stick-shaped pieces. He slit her face deeply, and pushed the flesh back, to reveal a glistening red skull, nestled into her neck. He wrenched it out, troubling over the brain before eventually having to sacrifice the jawbone in order to create a hole he could squeeze the brain out of. He pushed the eyes into the skull with his thumbs, feeling them break and the jelly-like substance flow over hands. He removed the other red, flesh parts too, the roof of her mouth and her throat, before laying her skull upside down. Seeing the hollow opening gave him an idea. His other creation had sounded good because of an echo. He slit her skin, creating thin, irregular-shaped sheets. He piled lumps of flesh around the cranium before attaching the skin, to create a strange-shaped hollow box. Just glancing at it would not tell you there was a skull nestled underneath. The woman's skin was stretched tight over the opening, and when Sheogorath hit it with one of the sticks of bone, it made a round, hollow noise. The last thing Sheogorath decided to do was to hollow out another bone. The skull had worked well, and it seemed that hollow things made music. He fussed over the body, trying to find a long enough bone, finally deciding on the femur. It took work detaching it from her leg, as he'd made a mess of the cut. He eventually yanked it out, pulling it from its socket, and that action sent the patella spinning into the wall behind him. He paid it no mind. Instead, he set about hollowing out the femur. Breaking the odd-shaped ends off so he could get at the fleshy red marrow on the inside. This took him hardly any time to clean out, and soon there was a small pile of red at his knees. Sheogorath wiped a red hand across his face, replacing the sweat with blood. He pondered over the tube, and blew down it. It seemed to have no effect. He looked across at his other grisly creations, seeing how, with both, the music was made by going _across_ the hole. So Sheogorath blew across the bone tube, covering the hole in the bottom. After a bit of fussing with the angle, he made a noise with it. With a quiet grin, he started making holes in the bone, finding out he could change the pitch of the sound produced after he'd blown over it. When this was done, he held it in his hands, admiring it. He was tired, his mortal body physically spent. This was about all he could push it into doing for the moment.

He looked over at the woman, who was barely recognisable as a person anymore. Her head was nothing more than deflated, flat flesh pooled out around the opening to her neck. Her chest had been ripped and torn so much it was nothing more than a crimson mess. Her legs were bruised, broken, and, in one case, opened up completely. Sheogorath felt pride on her behalf; she had helped create instuments that would make music. Only thing was… what to do with them now?

Sheogorath tried them all out again, noting that, now the tendons were drier, they made a better noise. And still springy, which was important. The skull drum was equally satisfying, and his pipe creation was high and piercing. Excellent.

Sheogorath, proud of himself and therefore happy, was in a generous mood. He decided to gift his three creations to the college, hoping that someone might come across them soon and play them, so they'd be able to make music as beautiful as birdsong. He left the woman, mutilated beyond recognition, in the garden, crushing the Dragon's Tongue, and left his instruments on the steps of the college. He gave them one last look, his mortal body trembling with excretion and adrenaline, before he turned to walk back up to the gates of Solitude, where he would then return to Oblivion. His hands were crusty with dried brown blood, and his sweat made him uncomfortable, but the knowledge that he had furthered the mortal world pleased him so much he almost didn't notice.

He was passing the tree where he heard the 'beautiful birdsong', his cane tapping a neat rhythm on the cobbles, when he remembered what he had thought about hollow things making the best music. He peered into the tree, spotting a sleeping bluebird, a gentle fluff of a creature. Sheogorath reached in, slowly encircling his hand around the bird, which only woke up when he pulled it from its perch. Its wings were trapped so it cheeped feebly. Sheogorath stared into its throat, the moonlight his only light source, but could not see if the bird was hollow.

So he squeezed. The bird's beady eyes bulged, blood rose into its beak and its frail, bones were breaking, to the accompaniment of the hush of the air leaving its lungs. Sheogorath tightened his grip, until the bird was dead, until the broken bones were rupturing the flesh and stabbing his mortal hand. Sheogorath opened his fist, concluding that bird was not hollow. The bones were, though. He smiled; the bones had made good cracking noises. He dropped the carcass on the cold cobbles, blue feathers sticking to the blood in his hand, and continued walking. To anyone looking, it would have seemed as if the Man with the Cane simply vanished into the gloom, leaving a solitary blue feather behind, drifting to the ground.


	2. Sheogorath and Music Epilogue

**Epilogue**

The city folk fond the woman's remains very soon in the morning, and, at her funeral, her three children, eyes streaming with tears, commemorated her with music. Her eldest played what he could on the lute, plucking a few notes, sniffing quietly, playing his mother's tendons. The middle child sat with the skull drum between his legs, and played a slow, dirge-like rhythm, tapping it on his mother's skin, with a fragment of his mother's rib. And the youngest played shrill, mournful notes on the flute, her face red and raw with tears as she blew over the hole in her mother's femur.


End file.
